on a lighter and less “she’s a witch! burn her!” note, i offer you the following:

after the rains yesterday our backyard turned into a pond. i am now investing in doggy life jackets for the girls.

dmoney rocks out. although not with her cock out.

nothing is more fun than taking photos in a bathroom. be glad i didn’t take a photo of my bowel movement.

i asked for it and i got it. while the majority of the comments to this post were positive or neutral a couple of you voiced your opinion on my apparent heathenism. i’ve been thinking for the past couple of weeks how to follow up my post on Christianity and every thing i’ve written turned out to be this long-winded diatribe about growing up under the oppressive thumb of the Baptist private school system, being brainwashed, and wah!, listen to me whine about my blessed childhood. so here it is in a nutshell: i’m not anti-Christianity, i’m not even anti-God, i’m just starting to come out from everything that i’ve been taught as true and beginning to ask real questions. does this make me an atheist? no. does this make me a bad person? certainly not. will some family and friends shun me? probably, but thems the breaks for being of independent mind and free-will. i’ve been a sheep for so long and blindly followed the teachings of the church without stopping to say, hey, something just doesn’t add up here. i would rather be true to myself and my heart than pretend to be something that i might not be.

contrary to belief i am not in a dark place. in fact, at this time i couldn’t be happier. telling someone they are in a “dark place” simply because they don’t necessarily believe what you believe is part of the reason we have people ramming planes into buildings. i love and accept all of you for your beliefs and do not look down upon you, so is it right for you to do the same? i do not remember the Bible teaching “love one another, but only if they believe as you do”. hipocricy is a fickle madame. i don’t begrudge any of you your beliefs and welcome you to “pray for me”, but i ask this, spend your prayers on those who really need it: for abused and molested children. pray for all the innocents that die at the hands of disease, famine, war. pray that man can find peace, whether through religion or science.

the poster on Christianity was not intended to criticize, but to open a dialogue. last year when i went to see my family in albuquerque, a girl who sat next to me on the plane inquired about my religious beliefs. instead of engaging in a civilized conversation about God, Jesus, and all that jazz, she shoved pamphlets in my hands and lectured me on questioning “our Lord and Savior”. what did she accomplish? other than making me want to shove her body in the luggage rack, nothing. this kamikaze style preaching is grotesque and violating.

a friend of mine told me today “The reasons why religion is so powerful are many, but at the root is humanity’s need for its existence to mean more than living and dying. Religion answers that. It answers all of those questions. Those answers are wrong, but religion is easy to accept. It doesn’t require questioning, thought, or even an understanding, just acceptance.” maybe that is all there is to this life: living and dying. ashes to ashes.

i am 30 minutes from a possible meltdown. no hair will be spared. all hairs will be hurt in this production.

oh how i have strayed from the flock. and if i believed in hell i would probably be going there at the end of my long non-believer life just for posting what you see below. i’m sorry, though, truer words were never spoken.

the line to pelt me with Bibles forms to the left.

have you seen the target commercial with milla jovovich and that blonde designer lady? am i the only one who doesn’t understand how clothes can be “ironic”. are they clothes that you don’t wear or something?

::forehead slap::

i have felt better these past eight days than i have in a long time. i don’t know if it is the gorgeous weather, the fact that i haven’t been face down in the toilet, or that for the first time i have some sort of answer to what has been going on with my body. because, you know, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER! and while i still have no definitive answer, just knowing that this is not all in my head is good enough for me. i’ve been through so much this year and have been beat down and am ready to know something other than my bedroom and the doc-in-a-box. i’m ready to start the family that we have so desperately wanted. i have two options: chew bubblegum or kick ass.

and i’m fresh out of bubblegum.

i’m already tired of 2008. after the miscarriage over the christmas holidays i was positive that 2008 was going to be nothing but a whole ton of awesome. i mean, surely life wouldn’t kick me in throat in the new year. certainly i was going to coast through the next couple of months while we waited until we could start trying for a baby again. oh silly girl.

this past week has been a lesson in patience. i’ve been down all week with a stomach virus that put me in the emergency room on thursday morning. i apparently passed out from dehydration and hit my head on the floor. they did a CT scan and though there was no concussion they did find an abnormality. they confirmed with a neurologist that i have what is called cerebellar tonsillar ectopia. go look it up if you’re interested, but basically it explains every problem i’ve had for a while. chronic headaches radiating from my back of my head, tension in my neck, fatigue, et al. they doctors at the ER referred me to a neurologist to confirm the diagnosis and to decide a course of action. i’m trying to stay optimistic. if it was life threatening then they would have admitted me, right? right.

so there you have it. i’m worn out. i am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

update
i forgot to add that this song is one of the things keeping me in a good mood and not putting me in a murderous rampage right now. good time to roll on.

Kings of Leon - King of the Rodeo

i’ve been super lazy this week. details to come as to why when i get off my ass and actually find the motivation to write about it. and no, for the hundredth time i am not pregnant. in the meantime here are photos of my brand new and very tiny niece, kendall. she’s doing great but will stay in the NICU for an undetermined length of time.
click on photos for super enbiggened size!

her teeny hands kill me. and boy, does she love to use them. she’s constantly trying to pull out her feeding tube, which i really don’t blame her. i get whiny if i have to put anything up my nose. you know, other than my finger.

teeny hands are nothing compared to teeny feet.

oh dear god, if you haven’t passed out from the cuteness by this point you have no heart. in fact, you probably eat puppies for breakfast.

do you see the bangs? yep, they’re totally out of control. i think they’re planning on forming a coup d’etat of north korea.

mortal enemies? not when there is a sunbeam involved.

living in birmingham has its advantages: minimal traffic, decent restaurants, beautiful scenery; however, the people who work in the public sector of this little city make me wonder how they manage not to scrape their knuckles every time they walk. this week i went to the downtown courthouse to renew my vehicle tag. when i arrive i am the sixth person in line and there are three tellers at the counter. i think to myself “awesome, i’ll get out of here and still have time to stop at milo’s to grab a gut-busting 64 ounce sweet tea”.

there i go being all optimistic.

thirty minutes goes by and only two people in the line have been seen. at one point one of the tellers gets up, and takes her ipod over to two chatting employees. it is now high noon and the line swells to 15 more people. the teller who got up has looked at the line a couple of times but continues to gossip. and then she does something that completely amazes me, though it really shouldn’t have: she grabs her coat and goes on break! if i had a client in my office and just got up and went on break, my boss would string me up by my ears and then fire me.

several people see this and leave the line, but not me. i am determine to stay here and update my tag. i am a rock of resolve. i will stay in this line all afternoon if i have to! i am now the second person in line and i have been in this sweltering room for 45 minutes. my feet are starting to hurt from standing in a stationary position. the little old lady next to me is starting to sweat and takes out a hanky and wipes her forehead. i ask if she’s okay and she drawls “why yes deary, i’m just a little harried”. i wonder aloud “are they having to make the tags back there?”. the little old lady grins at me.

after another 15 minutes i finally make it to the front of the line and i hear “next!”. i let out a sigh of relief and the little old lady mumbles “about damn time”. i get up to the teller, renew my tag and hightail it out of there. elapsed time: one hour, 15 minutes.

now here is my question: at the busiest time of day why would you only have two tellers to handle a slew of customers? it makes no sense! where is their manager? it seems only rational that they would enforce a policy that during peak hours no less than three tellers be on the line. and the thing that really pisses me off is that while 20 people are standing there employees are coming and going through the door to god knows where. can’t they see that this is grossly inefficient? no, they turn a blind eye because it doesn’t involve them or it isn’t their job. these employees are so apathetic it is disturbing.

oh, and because i had spent my entire lunch break standing in line i didn’t get my sweet tea. bastards!

dear owner of safari cup,

congratulations, you’ve officially snagged the tile of utter douchebag. when i called this morning to politely inquire as to why flyers with YOUR COMPANY’S NAME were left on my tenant’s vehicles in a private parking deck you proceeded to yell at me for no reason whatsoever. first of all, asshat, you’re not winning any popularity contests or customers by yelling at someone who oversees a building in downtown with over 1500 potential customers. secondly, i was simply asking who i would speak to about said offense when you began screaming “don’t accuse me!”. last time i checked, inquiring is not accusing.

also, i’m not sure if you are aware but you are a small business owner in a part of the city where small businesses are lucky to stay open for longer than a year. alienating anyone regardless of who they are or what type of clientelle they can bring you is truly unwise. in fact, the last time i actually patronized your establishment during peak hours there was maybe three people in the facility and two of them were employees. so go ahead and have your haughty movie nights and overpriced store bought coffee, you’re presence is not doing anyone any favors. though i am a consumate advocate of the “little guy” i absolutely refuse to visit your place of business again. i would rather eat $12 nails at starbucks than ensure you made one red cent off of me.

again, congratulations on becoming a boil on the butt of this city. i think zimbabwe is missing their village idiot.

sincerely,
pretty helmet